


Don't Leave Me

by merceralexs



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Fluffy, M/M, boyfriends bein boyfriends doin boyfriend things, found family if you look hard enough, hurt/angst, willie doesn't want to leave alex but he feels like he has no choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:29:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28704453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merceralexs/pseuds/merceralexs
Summary: “Hey,” Alex says, pulling him back in, “hey. I’m here for you, you know? If he comes back, I-I’ll protect you,” he tells him, his voice breaking. He can’t bear the thought of losing him again. Finding Willie again was hard enough, and freeing him of his stamp was worse. He’d never wish that kind of stress and pain on anyone.Willie chuckles, pressing his forehead to Alex’s. “I love your confidence. But you can’t always be saving me.” He leans back and Alex holds his gaze. “You mean so much to me, and I’m not going to let you put yourself and your friends in the way of him, not again.”-Or the one where Willie thinks he's saving Alex the heartache.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 126





	Don't Leave Me

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: could you do a fic about willie and alex please. one of them is upset and the other is comforting them/being protective. so they are having a deep conversation. 
> 
> i got this prompts MONTHS ago and never got around to it because i never had the inspiration. so to the person that requested it, i'm so sorry it's late. but it's angst but with a happy ending. also someone tell me when it's appropriate to post seven fics in a row, your girl doesn't know. 
> 
> hope you enjoy!

“This seat taken?” Willie asks, appearing beside Alex in the Orpheum. Alex doesn’t give a response, but he looks to Willie and gives a soft smile. Willie hesitates for a moment, “I know it’s been a crazy couple of weeks.” 

Alex scoffs, “I don’t think crazy begins to cover it.” He twirls his drumstick in his hand, eyes trained on a spot in front of them. Willie looks ahead but can’t follow his eyes. “I’m just thinking.” 

Willie rests a hand on his knee. Alex’s eyes flick to it and he smiles, slipping his hand under Willie’s to lace their fingers. “About what?” he asks, leaning his head against Alex’s shoulder. 

“Just about the last little while. How I thought I’d never see you again, see Julie again. How much my head hurts thinking about it,” he laughs. “I never thought I’d be sitting here again, that’s for sure. It feels too much like deja vu, but I couldn’t really think of anywhere else to go.” 

Willie ran his thumb over the callouses on the inside of Alex’s hand. It feels like it’s been hours that they’ve sat in silence, though he knows it’s maybe bridging ten minutes. He sits upright, turning to face Alex and cross his legs up on the stage. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Alex arches an eyebrow, “Talk about what, exactly?” Willie looks at their interlocked fingers and gives a small smile. “Oh, that.” Alex turns towards Willie and drops his hand, reaching up to touch his cheek. He strokes his thumb over the corner of his mouth, tilting his head to the side. “What do you want us to be?”

Willie leans into his touch. “I’m scared I can’t be your anything,” he says softly. Alex’s jaw tightens, but his touch doesn’t get tense. “What if Caleb comes back?” Alex can see the genuine fear in his eyes. “We don’t know what could happen, he could find me at anytime and I--” 

“Hey,” Alex says, pulling him back in, “hey. I’m here for you, you know? If he comes back, I-I’ll protect you,” he tells him, his voice breaking. He can’t bear the thought of losing him again. Finding Willie again was hard enough, and freeing him of his stamp was worse. He’d never wish that kind of stress and pain on anyone. 

Willie chuckles, pressing his forehead to Alex’s. “I love your confidence. But you can’t always be saving me.” He leans back and Alex holds his gaze. “You mean so much to me, and I’m not going to let you put yourself and your friends in the way of him, not again.” 

Alex threads his fingers together at the base of Willie’s neck, a crease between his eyebrows. He swallows. “This isn’t you saying goodbye again, is it?” Willie puts his hands over top of Alex’s and takes a breath. “I can’t handle saying goodbye again.” 

“I don’t want to, trust me I don’t want to, but I-I feel like… we don’t know what happened to him after my stamp disappeared. Yeah, he hasn’t been seen or heard from in weeks but that doesn’t mean he can’t just show up unannounced.” He pushes Alex’s hands down, cradling his face. “I would never forgive myself if something happened to you at the expense of me.” 

Alex chews on his bottom lip, a tear rolling down his cheek. “I’m not going to stop fighting for you.” 

Willie sighs, “Alex--” 

“No!” he exclaims, almost too quickly. He pulls back and stands up, beginning to pace. “No, no. You were the one that said you would do anything for me a-a-and now it’s my turn. I don’t care if he comes back, I don’t care i-if he wreaks havoc on everything I have.” 

“Alex you don’t mean that,” Willie says, a slight warning in his voice. “You can’t mean that. Julie, Luke, Reggie? They’re your family, they’re your everything. And you,” he takes a breath, standing up to grab Alex by the shoulders, “You are your own person first, I absolutely get that, but you need them, and they need you.” 

Willie thumbs away the tear on his cheek. 

“But I need you, too,” he whimpers. Willie’s heart breaks. Willie pulls the key necklace off around his neck and puts it over Alex’s head. “We can figure this out,” he pleads. “I-I-I’m sure… maybe Julie can do something? Or all of us as a band? Maybe there’s someone we can talk to.” Willie pulls him close, leaning on his toes to press his lips against Alex’s. 

Alex presses into the kiss, his hand on the small of Willie’s back. 

“You’ll always have me,” Willie says when they break apart. He runs his finger along the chain and then the key, bringing Alex’s hand to his lips and kissing his knuckles. “I’ll see you around… okay?” he whispers, like a promise he intends to keep. 

But why can’t Alex breathe?

He shakes his head, but willingly lets him go, watching as he walks towards the exit, disappearing before he actually gets to the door. Crossing over might not be so bad right now.  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“So he just left, again?” Luke asks, sitting beside Alex on the couch. Julie is on his opposite side, Reggie at his feet. Julie’s sitting with her knees tucked under her chin, watching Alex’s motions, attentive. She watches him rub his thumbs against the pads of the rest of his fingers, the way Reggie traces patterns into the exposed skin on the ankle of Alex’s bouncing leg, Luke’s hand pressing slow circles into his back. 

She admires how much of a unit they are. It leaves an ache in her chest for Alex, wishing she could do more. And though it’s only been a short amount of time, she feels such a pull to him. She connects with him in a way that’s vastly different than Luke and Reggie. He’s always fiercely protected her, even if she knew his confidence to do so wasn’t always there, it was the sentiment. He cared so deeply for the people around him. The empathy was second nature, and she loved him for that. 

Reaching out, she gingerly touches his shoulder. He looks down to her hand and then puts his on top of hers, curling it around hers. 

“He just said he didn’t want to put us in harm's way again, which I get but…” he looks down at his hands, “it hurt enough as it was the first time.”

Julie hopes, for Alex’s sake, he sees Willie again.  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It feels like eons before he does see him again and he doesn’t know if it makes him happy or not. There’s a fear that twists in his gut, wondering if he’s just gonna be played with by these invisible strings the rest of his afterlife. 

Really, it’s an accident that they run into each other. Alex is walking along the beach in Pasadena, the sun setting over the horizon. He had left his shoes and socks somewhere tucked under one of the docks, enjoying the feeling of the Earth beneath his feet. With the shoreline on his toes, he stuffs his hands into his pockets and looks out at the reflection of the ocean. 

“Hey,” he hears behind him and looks over his shoulder. Then, he fully turns around to absorb the moment. “Didn’t mean to kill your moment or anything, I just happened to be here and I--” 

Alex knocks the wind out of him; He barrels into him so fast and sends both of them to the sand. Alex has the advantage but his skin feels like it’s on fire and of course he’s a mess of tangled limbs, Willie chuckling against his ear. 

Alex leans back, bracing his hands in the sand on either side of Willie's head. “I-I’m sorry,” he says, the tips of his ears flushing pink. Willie’s eyes look tired, but there’s a gleam in them that tells Alex he’s happy to see him. Alex is happy to see Willie, but he’s also terrified. 

With his leg wedged between Alex’s, he hooks his ankle around him and flips them in the sand. His hair falls over his shoulder and tickles Alex’s cheeks. 

He looks like a dream, with his sun-kissed skin and soft pink lips. Cheekbones so sharp they could cut glass, yet his eyes were soft, kind. Alex reaches up and ghosts his fingers over his lips. 

“You’d tell me if I was dreaming, right?” he asks, carding his fingers through Willie’s hair. Willie smiles. “Yeah, no way I’m dreaming.” 

“I wasn’t going to interrupt your moment,” he begins, rolling to his side and standing up, extending his hand for Alex. “But you… I couldn’t help it.” Alex takes his hand and allows Willie to help him up, brushing the sand from his hair. “You’re magnetic.” 

Alex blinks at him and then takes a breath. Their hands are still molded together as he turns and tugs Willie along. “You get to follow me this time, yeah?” Willie nods eagerly. 

They walk along the beach for a long time, not really saying anything, just enjoying the company. Willie sways their arms back and forth and hums a melody. Alex glances over at him, feeling content in this moment. He knows exactly how he feels with Willie by his side, their fingers intertwined. Willie feels like love. Willie feels like home. 

“So you’re not scared...anymore?” Alex asks later that night. The sun has gone down and there’s a chill in the air, but he’s wrapped in Willie's arms and couldn’t ask for more. They’re hanging out on the roof of the Orpheum, pressed against the side of the building. 

“I was,” he says after a moment, “I still am, but I’m free of his stamp. And I think there are some things that are just worth fighting for.” Alex nods as Willie cards a hand through his hair. He rests his chin on top of Alex’s head and laces his fingers with his free hand. “Don’t you think?”

Alex pulls his hand to his lips, kissing his knuckles just like Willie had done weeks ago. “You know I’ve always thought that.” Alex takes a deep breath and sits up so that he can turn to face Willie. “Can we go to the studio? I think the guys are with Julie for a bit. Not that I don’t love this, but--” 

Willie chuckles, shaking his head. “No I get it, come on,” he takes his hand and pulls him up, stepping towards the edge. “You trust me, yeah?” 

“Why do we have to do it this way. Can’t we just do it in a way that doesn’t make my brain shut down? I don’t know, like normal ghosts?” 

“Alex, what’s the fun in that?”

Willie smirks before he nudges Alex off the ledge, Alex mirroring something close to a scream, before they land together on the couch in the studio, arms and legs tangled together, Willie laughing against his hair. 

“It doesn’t get more fun the more we do it!” Alex groans, pushing Willie off and to the ground with a small chuckle. Willie sits up, blowing the hair out of his face and points at him. 

“That smirk says otherwise!” Willie gets up and sits beside Alex on the couch, their knees bumping together. “Admit it, I keep you out of your head,” he says, nudging his shoulder. Alex shakes his head and laughs. 

“Maybe a little bit. But not when you’re not here,” he says quietly. Willie reaches out and grabs his hand, pulling it to his chest. “I’m so happy you’re back, but I don’t want you to leave again.” Alex turns to him and swallows the lump in his throat. 

“I’m not going to leave you again.” Willie moves his hands to cup Alex’s face, “I promise.” 

“That’s a really big word.” 

Willie nods, contemplative of what he says next. “You trust me, yeah?” Alex closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. 

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” he smirks. Willie chuckles but continues to hold his gaze. “But, I trust you.” 

“I’m not going to leave you again,” he says, with much more certainty. His hands slide to the back of Alex’s neck and his eyes flicker to his lips. Alex sucks in a breath. “I don’t ever want to leave you again.” 

Boldly, Alex says, “Then don’t.” He’s the one to close the gap between him and Willie and he’s the one to pull him alarmingly close. Willie falters for a moment, their teeth clashing before finding a rhythm. His hands stay trained on his neck while Alex’s hands fall to the small of his back. 

When they pull apart, Alex’s cheeks are pink and Willie has an awestruck smile on his face. Alex clears his throat, leaning back against the couch. He scratches the back of his neck. 

“Sorry.” 

Willie blinks and then laughs. “You’re sorry for kissing me?” 

“Yeah… I-I didn’t ask first.” 

Willie lets out a laugh from low in his belly, playfully rolling his eyes. "You're cute. You know, you don't have to ask, some things are just unspoken." Alex nods thoughtfully. Willie leans forward and presses another kiss to his lips. “Reading the room.” Alex smiles and pulls Willie into his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around him and inhaling the smell of the ocean and sun on his skin. Willie melts under his touch, nuzzling his face against Alex’s neck. “We can stay here forever, right?” he mumbles against his shirt. 

“At least for the night.”


End file.
